The Basics

Like a fingerprint, each mind is unique. Mindprint enables parents and educators to understand how an individual child learns best so the child can be given the optimal supports to succeed. At the core of Mindprint is an online, one hour scientifically valid cognitive battery developed at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Mindprint identifies areas of giftedness, learning challenges and cognitive strengths so parents and educational specialists can effectively support each child in school and beyond. Specific recommendations are provided to improve homework efficiency, test performance and learning engagement. Mindprint is used worldwide by schools, private practitioners, and parents.

Mindprint assesses the following 10 skills and provides supports for additional cognitive skills and all academic skills:

Schools and tutoring centers should contact us directly for more information about our services for professional development, one-to-one student support, social-emotional learning, classroom management, and test preparation.

Cognitive skills identify how you learn best. Tests of cognitive skills identify how you most efficiently understand new information and recall previously learned information. In contrast, tests of academic skills are a test of what you know and are more similar to the achievement tests your child takes in school. Most schools never test cognitive skills. A good understanding of one’s cognitive strengths and needs can be the key to more efficient learning. This is true for all students, particularly once they reach middle and high school when there is more work to do and efficiency is key to success.

Mindprint is designed for English-speaking students ages 8 to 21. Students should be reading English at or above a second grade level. Students who can comfortably read words such as coats, pinch, shape, string, and thumps should be ready for Mindprint.

Students with diagnosed attention and learning disabilities can take Mindprint. However, students should be able to listen to and follow simple, multi-step instructions independently. An example of an instruction would be, “You will see letters appear on the screen. Press the space bar if you see the letter X. Do not press the space bar for letters other than X.”

Since Mindprint will be taken with a standard computer and mouse, students should have both the dexterity to use a mouse and adequate vision. If the student wears glasses for reading or working at school, the student should wear glasses throughout the testing.

If you have questions about a specific student’s readiness, please feel free to contact us.

Mindprint has sitewide solutions for schools, tutoring centers, teacher classrooms, and clinics. Pricing varies based on volume, frequency of assessment, and the level of support services. If you are interested in Mindprint on behalf of your school or professional practice, please contact us here

Mindprint at Home

An individual one year subscription to Mindprint costs $199. If your child has a current psycho-educational evaluation, your family can utilize the Toolbox of teacher-recommended products at a discounted price of $29. These results will be customized based on your entering the results of your independent assessment of learning strengths and needs from your personal clinician.

We have priced our services to be an affordable option so you can better understand your child’s needs and determine if your child needs personalized support services.

Your Mindprint subscription includes:

The online Mindprint Assessment of essential cognitive skills

The Unique Learning Profile, which interprets and explains the results of the Assessment in comparison to a nationwide sample of similarly aged children. The Profile includes recommendations for helping your child maximize strengths and overcome specific needs.

If a student has a current evaluation and you are satisfied with the results, you can purchase access to a Personalized Learning Plan and Mindprint Toolbox by entering in the results of the student’s evaluation.

Many schools and parents choose to test students with Mindprint even for student with a current evaluation. Every test is different and Mindprint might assesss skills that are not reflected in the student’s evaluation. Also, if you believe the evaluation might no longer fully reflect the student’s capabilities and needs, Mindprint can be a cost-effective way to determine if a student might benefit from an updated evaluation or different learning supports.

We recommend that parents discuss any significant concerns with a current evaluation with the clinician and the child study team at your child’s school.

Mindprint follows industry protocols and recommends assessing students every one to three years. This should provide sufficient information on how the student is progressing and if their needs have changed. Schools, clinicians, and other professionals sometimes determine it is in a student’s best interest to assess more frequently. If you have questions about re-assessment, please contact us

Mindprint does not offer a diagnosis or a classification. However, parents, schools, and clinicians use Mindprint, in combination with other assessments and observation, to come to a fully informed decision on whether a child should be placed in gifted programs. Mindprint is also used to better understand the needs of twice exceptional children, those who are gifted but also have a learning disability.

Mindprint does not give medical or learning diagnoses. Parents, schools and clinicians do use Mindprint in combination with other assessments and observation to come to a fully informed decision on how to help children with specific learning needs.

Mindprint personalized recommendations are often incorporated into a student’s accommodation or IEP. Mindprint assessment results can be important objective data used in a student’s IEP or 504 Plan meeting. Special education laws vary by state and there are distinctions by district, so the school determines how Mindprint results are best used for each student. If you are a school employee or practitioner and would like more detailed information on the Mindprint assessment or how to include Mindprint in your evaluation process, please feel free to contact us for additional information.

Mindprint for Schools and Clinicians

Mindprint is used in a variety of school situations and departments. Because Mindprint has been normed and validated across the full range of ages and ability levels, it can be an effective tool to address a broad range of needs including:

Social-Emotional / Whole Child Learning: Support the whole child by developing self-awareness and self-regulation skills; Use our workbook Teaching Students How to Take Charge of Learning (CAST-Universal Design for Learning Publishing pending publication April 2018)

Mindprint offers significant volume discounts for schools. Just as we know every child is unique, we appreciate every school is unique. It’s our goal to help you use Mindprint in a way that will best meet your goals. To get started, contact us here

Many schools use Mindprint to support personalized learning, individualized learning, or differentiated instruction for their students. Mindprint helps teachers understand how a student learns best. Each student receives a personalized learning plan that provides recommendations for specific strategies to support learning by academic subject, social-emotional skills, and study skills.

Mindprint readily integrates with existing learner profiles and personalized learning plans that your might already be using or Mindprint can be used as a stand-alone solution.

Yes, Mindprint works directly with tutoring centers, therapists and other educational practitioners. Our solutions are good for academic tutoring as well as standardized test prep (ACT, SAT, ISEE, SSAT, etc.) If you’d like to learn more about how you can integrate Mindprint into your current service offerings and take advantage of our volume discounts, please contact us here

Schools use Mindprint for tiered intervention planning in the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support and Response to Intervention (MTSS/RtI) problem solving process. The Mindprint assessment provides objective data on skill deficits that can contribute to academic difficulties. Mindprint’s objective data on student strengths helps identify the most efficient supports for a student’s areas of academic need.

The Mindprint recommendations in the personalized learning plan are used to drive the student’s MTSS or RtI intervention plan and ensure that each student receives the individualized supports he or she needs to be successful by academic subject. Mindprint personalized learning plans can be accessed by the student’s full support team to ensure effective goal setting and that all student needs are tracked and met.

Mindprint provides objective data and learning supports for social-emotional learning (SEL) and development of 21st century skills. Cognitive skills are well-established as the foundation for all academic and personal skills development. The learner profile is an essential tool in understanding student attitudes, preferences and academic performance.

Mindprint’s SEL platform focuses on building student self-awareness and self-efficacy skills based on the objective data in the learner profile. Instructional strategies focus on the importance of building self-awareness, fostering growth mindset, and understanding and developing intrinsic motivation. Each student’s personalized learning plan includes strategies targeted at understanding their personal strengths and needs as well as the importance of health and emotional wellness. Strategies focus on independent work as well as developing key 21st century skills for working collaboratively in group settings.

The Mindprint Assessment

Mindprint’s cognitive battery was developed by neuroscientists in the Brain Behavior Laboratory at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Known as the “Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery” (CNB) in the scientific literature, it is a series of computerized tests that measure accuracy and speed of performance in major domains of cognition. It has been tested in over 100,000 participants worldwide including more than 10,000 children, 50,000 members of the armed services. The test is valid and reliable and has been normed by age. You can be confident that if you administer the test according to our instructions, you will have a good understanding of your student’s cognitive strengths and needs relative to same-aged peers.

FUN FACT: The adult version of the assessment is used by NASA to evaluate the cognition of the astronauts!

To read the national publications, including peer-reviewed scientific journals about the Mindprint Assessment, including how NASA uses it, click here

Mindprint is a scientifically-valid cognitive test designed to help pinpoint a child’s learning strengths and needs. Since the early part of the 20th century, cognitive evaluations have been considered to be the most reliable way to evaluate a child’s abilities, and offer the best predictions of academic performance and socio-economic success. Mindprint is pleased to be the first to offer a computerized version that can be completed in the comfort of a child’s home. It can be taken at a time that best suits your child’s schedule so that your child performs at his or her best and is most relaxed. Mindprint has high validity and reliability as documented in NIH-sponsored studies and peer-reviewed journal articles.

The Assessment includes a series of 9 short sub-tests that measure a broad range of learning skills. Unlike school achievement tests, there are no reading passages and no math computations. Students who have taken the Assessment have described it as a series of puzzles and surprisingly fun.

All assessment instructions are displayed in written form and have professional audio voice-over. The instructions can be replayed as often as the student needs. The adult proctor should not need to read the instructions but can repeat them to the student for reassurance if it will be comforting. To preserve the integrity of the results, adults should not provide any additional guidance that is not in the instructions.

Please note that Mindprint is designed for students reading at a second grade level and can follow simple, multi-step instructions independently. If you have any additional questions about a student’s readiness for Mindprint or test administration, please contact us.

Schools that have gifted & talented programs typically require that each student take the school’s standardized evaluation. If your child score in the top 5% of any of the Mindprint complex reasoning tasks and did not qualify for your school’s gifted program, you might want to share the results with your child’s school to see if they might re-consider your child’s gifted eligibility.

Many summer programs will accept Mindprint to meet the eligibility criteria, including:

Mindprint is self-administered so any adult can proctor the assessment. All of the instructions are displayed in written form and have professional audio voice-over so the student can listen to them. The adult’s most important roles will be to set up a clean desk space for the student in advance of testing, including having an external computer mouse, reserve approximately 60 minutes to take the assessment, and be sure that the student is not interrupted or distracted while testing.

Once you are a registered user of Mindprint, you can access the full instructions here.

Mindprint can be administered on any desktop or laptop computer. The student will need quiet, have a clean desktop without disturbances. An adult should be present during administration in case a student runs into any difficulties. Schools can offer group administration. Students should have headphones and be spaced sufficiently apart so as not to see each other’s screens.

How long is the assessment?

Most students use approximately one hour to complete the full assessment, including two short breaks. Mindprint is administered as a series of nine brief sub-tests of no more than 10 minutes each. Each individual sub-test must be completed without stopping. A student can get up after any sub-test is completed, even if it is not a recommended break point. It is strongly recommended that students complete Mindprint in one session. However, in the event of unforeseen circumstances or the student seems very fatigued, you can logout after any sub-test. Testing will resume at the next sub-test when you log back in.

What do I do if a student does not want to take the breaks?

Adults should strongly encourage students to take the breaks even if the student says he does not need it. The sub-tests after the breaks can be mentally taxing, and the breaks will help ensure that students performs their best on all sub-tests. Breaks will be particularly important for students with weaker attention or learning difficulties.

What time of day should a student take Mindprint?

External factors such as sleep, hunger, illness and attitude are known to affect student performance on all tests. We recommend testing when the student is in good physical and mental spirits. For most students, this will be morning or midday after a good meal and there is no rush to be someplace else.

What should I do if my student is reluctant to take Mindprint?

A student who does not want to take Mindprint might be concerned about poor performance or that the results will be used to give extra work. Adults should explain that the purpose is to better understand how they learn and not to quiz them on what they already know. In fact, some students will be pleased to learn that Mindprint includes no math calculations and no reading comprehension passages. Students should be reassured that the primary purpose is to enable them to work more efficiently so they can do better in school and potentially spend less time on homework.

When will I receive the Learner Profile?

You will be emailed a link to view the child’s Unique Learning Profile within 5 business days of the child completing the test. Our system is set up to ensure the privacy of every child’s confidential information.

How is Mindprint different from standardized achievement tests like the Regents, ERB, PARC, and Iowa Test of Basic Skills?

One way to understand the difference between statewide standardized achievement tests and Mindprint is this: an achievement tells you what your student knows or has mastered, while Mindprint helps you understand why a student is performing at that level. For example, a standardized achievement test may show that your student is reading at a level below his or her peers but will not tell you why. Mindprint will help you understand if this performance is due to difficulties with processing speed, complex reasoning, or memory. Once you understand why a student is struggling, you are much better positioned to provide the best supports. We expect that Mindprint will provide you with significant insights not offered by standardized school achievement tests.

How is Mindprint different from the CogAT and Otis-Lennon ability tests?

The CogAT and Otis-Lennon are well-developed, normed tests that will provide a valid indication of a student’s overall abilities in math and language. However, they might not assess the full range of skills needed to effectively determine why a student might be struggling or excelling.

Mindprint evaluates strengths and needs in cognitive skills such as working memory, attention and processing speed that are not analyzed by group-administered ability tests.

If the district only offers CogAT and Otis-Lennon tests once in an academic career, Mindprint can be helpful in understanding if a student’s capabilities have changed and are developing faster or slower relative to peers.

Learner Profile

The Learner Profile will show your child’s learning strengths and needs on ten skills across the core domains of speed, executive functions, complex reasoning and memory. The results are analyzed with respect to the general population as well as variations in your child’s own performance.

You will notice that in keeping with our alignment to UDL guidelines, the report is color-coded. Other visual imagery makes it easy to understand and navigate online. The student’s strengths are always displayed in green, skills in the typically-developing range are in blue, and skills that need support are in purple. You will find the same color-coding scheme throughout the student’s toolbox.

Your student’s learner profile includes detailed performance as well as specific recommendations to build on strengths and address any specific needs. More details on how to use the recommendations can be found in your student’s Personalized Toolbox on the Mindprint website.

Included in the learner profile is a written interpretation of your student’s performance. Keep in mind that the results reflect your student’s strengths and needs at a single point in time. Students develop at different rates and acquire and process information differently, so realize this profile could change over time based on your student’s learning experiences and attitude toward learning.

The Learner Profile explains how your student learns best. Results can be used to help with homework efficiency. Teachers can use the results to differentiate instruction or provide appropriate supports during school. The specific recommendations provided in the summary section of the Learner Profile will make clear where the student will benefit most.

Each student’s Personalized Learning Plans include learning strategies by academic topic. Mindprint’s customized search tool enables you to find products by academic topic or cognitive skill, or search for products likely to appeal to a student’s specific interests and hobbies.

Should students see the Learner Profile?

This is a personal decision based on the student’s age, maturity and likely reaction to this information. Regardless of whether you choose to share the Learner Profile with a student, keep in mind that all students benefit from a better understanding of their learning strengths so they develop self-confidence and learn how to learn.

Learn more about options for sharing the profile with your student click here

Read more about the importance of self-awareness, self-monitoring & metacognition click here

While it does not happen often, sometimes we are unable to report conclusive results on a specific skill and you will see an “invalid score” on your report. Our analyses take into careful consideration both accuracy and speed of the response on every question. Our experts can tell if a student took too long to respond to several stimuli and was likely interrupted during testing, and/or responded so quickly that s/he was not carefully considering several of his/her answers. Since the student’s response to every question is considered to accurately interpret the results, we cannot report scores in these situations.

However, the adult proctor’s observations of the student during the invalid test, in combination with other data, could be helpful in interpreting the student’s performance. If an invalid score was reported on your student’s report, you might consider the following:

Students with weaker attention skills are more likely to lose focus during a sub-test. If the child had difficulty with the test of attention or has a diagnosis for attention, it is possible that difficulties with attention impacted the student’s performance on the invalid sub-test. In general, students are more likely to lose attention for tasks that they find more difficult or less interesting.

Students who did not show signs of weaker attention and had an invalid score on a single test, might have found that sub-test more difficult than the others. It is not unusual for students to feel frustrated or reluctant to put forth all the effort required on tasks that they find too challenging or in which they feel that they will not be successful even if they try their best. While this does not indicate that the child has a weakness in this skill, the results could indicate that the student found this task relatively difficult in comparison to the other tasks. An adult’s observation of the child’s behavior or comments during this task can be helpful in understanding the student’s performance.

It is always important to remember that the results reflect the student’s performance on a single day. It is possible that the student was tired, not feeling well, anxious, or simply not at his best during the particular task. We always recommend that Mindprint results be carefully considered in combination with parent and teacher observation, grades and past testing performance for a complete understanding of how to help a child be successful.

The Mindprint Toolbox

Learning strategies are expert-recommended approaches for improving learning outcomes. They include approaches to help students understand new information, remember more easily, read more efficiently and focus. All of our recommended strategies are research-based and free to everyone. Since we have no advertisements on our site, you should feel comfortable having students browse strategies as well.

Every student receives a personalized learning plan that is developed from the results of his or her learner profile. The learning plan covers 6 major academic and social-emotional categories:

Study Skills

Reading

Writing

Math

Group Work/Collaboration

Self-Awareness/Growth Mindset

Strategies in the plan are prioritized based on the student’s learning strengths and needs. There are options to set goals and track progress within the plan, and the plan can be viewed and shared online by all the adults supporting the student. Plans are intentionally designed for maximum flexibility to adapt and adjust with students’ ever-changing needs, including the option to add external resources.

Individualized student reading plans are available at no additional charge upon request. Individualized reading plans are available for students at all age levels who might need additional support in the five core reading skills: phonological awareness, reading comprehension (fiction and non-fiction), reading fluency, and vocabulary.

If you are a Mindprint customer and would like access to a personalized reading plan, please contact us.

In addition to learning strategies, Mindprint has reviews of approximately 2,000 educational products, including apps, websites, games, and workbooks. All of the products are reviewed by certified teachers or child psychologists who understand how students learn best.

What standards does Mindprint use to evaluate educational learning products?

Mindprint uses its own proprietary rubric to for educational product reviews. Our rubric was designed based on the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines version 2.0. The UDL guidelines began as a project of the National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum (NCAC), a cooperative agreement between the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) and the U.S. Department of Education. UDL guidelines have been extensively reviewed by teachers, researchers and other practitioners. They are nationally accepted standards for evaluating curricula with their goal to ensure curricula are suitable and optimally challenging for all types of learners. If you are interested in learning more about UDL click here.

Mindprint has adapted the UDL guidelines to make them relevant to the supplemental learning products with terms more familiar to most teachers and parents. In some cases, we have also added our own criteria to assess appropriateness for students with specific interests and cognitive needs. Underneath every product review you can see how the product performed relative to the UDL-inspired criteria as well as if the product will be most suitable for students with specific cognitive strengths, needs or personal interests.

Why does Mindprint include games?

We believe playing games with students is one of the best ways to help strengthen cognitive skills. Research shows that when students play an educational game with an adult, they learn more from the game. ABest of all, approaching skill-building in a fun and engaging way will not feel like work.

Games are particularly important for teaching the 21st century skills that are coveted by employers but not always fully developed in the classroom. These include skills such as cooperation, flexible thinking, creativity, self-expression, and self-control.

While the impact of playing games may not be as measurable as other educational tools, playing quality games with students will result in observable improvements over time.

Mindprint offers an extensive selection of game reviews. Our games target a wide range of skills, from specific academic topics to cognitive skills. You can explore games based on a student’s interests and competitive nature, as well as the skills you want to reinforce. Picking a game that a student will enjoy is essential in making games a productive instructional tool.

Mindprint does not develop its own products – we are content agnostic. We look for the best products on the market and evaluate them.

Does Mindprint profit from selling products?

Mindprint’s reviews are independent and unbiased. Because Mindprint does not develop its own products, we do not benefit when you choose one product over another. Our goal is to help you select the content that can best improve academic and cognitive skills based on the child’s Learner Profile. Many of Mindprint’s favorite app recommendations are free as are our psychologist-recommended learning strategies.

In some cases, when you purchase a product through the Mindprint website we may receive an industry-standard commission from our channel partners regardless of the specific product you choose.

I am a manufacturer. How can my educational product be included in the Toolbox?

If you are a manufacturer or publisher and would like us to review your products, please click here to contact us.

Technical Problems

Your login is the email address you used to create an account when you paid for your subscription. If you have forgotten your password, click on the “Forgot Password” link on the login screen and you will be emailed a new, temporary password. Once you login with this password for the first time, you will be asked to create a new, permanent password.

Please be sure you have read and followed the instructions thoroughly. If the Assessment is not downloading properly, it’s most likely one of four reasons. Try troubleshooting in the following order: (1) Check that your browser is up-to-date. If you are not using Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, consider downloading one of those free browsers;(2) Check that your Adobe Flash Player Plug-in is installed and up-to-date; (3) Check if anti-virus or firewall software is blocking your access. Some firewall and anti-virus software or hardware in your office or home network may block your browser from accessing and running the Flash content. You may wish to also temporarily disable your firewall or anti-virus software, restart your browser and try the download again; (4) Check that your browser security settings allow access to Flash and JavaScript content and cookies. The testing environment requires that cookies be enabled to track test progress. These cookies will expire within 3 hours.

Once the student finishes the assessment, our team evaluates the data within five business days. You will receive an email when the student’s learner profile is available is available in your account home.

If you do not want the student to see the learner profile, you have the option to create a student account. The navigation bar at the top of each screen has an option to put the site in restricted access which allows a student to login and use the Mindprint Toolbox but prohibits access to the learner profile. If you are logged in and cannot see the learner profile check to be sure you have a blue notebook icon in the navigation bar. Student restricted access is denoted by a pink start icon.

The Mindprint assessment can be taken on any desktop or laptop computer, PC or Macintosh. You will need an external computer mouse and keyboard. You will need Internet access to download each part of the battery, but the Internet speed will not impact the test or the student’s performance. The student’s learner profile, personalized learning plan, and Toolbox will be usable on any device.

IMPORTANT: You cannot take Mindprint on a tablet or smartphone device and you must use an external computer mouse and keyboard.

We strongly recommend you use the most recent version of Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome to take the Assessment. If necessary, you can use Internet Explorer v11 or higher or Apple Safari v7.0.5 or higher. The browser must allow JavaScript and cookies and have Adobe Flash plug-in.

After taking the Assessment, the Mindprint website will support most browsers.

If you cannot see product prices, your account is in restricted student access mode. Restricted student access is there for your protection so that your student cannot purchase products or view a learner profile without adult consent. Restricted student access is denoted by the pink and white star icon in the navigation bar. If you want to purchase products or view a learner profile, switch back to adult mode denoted by a blue and white notebook icon. You will need your password to switch to adult access.

You won’t be able to access a student’s toolbox until the student has completed the assessment and you have been notified that the results are available. At that point you will have access to the learner profile, personalized learning plan and full toolbox.

Administration instructions are found in your account. We recommend reading the instructions a day before you plan to administer the Assessment so you do not keep your student waiting. As indicated in the instructions, you will need an external computer mouse. To view the instructions from your account, click here

When printing your learner profile, always use the pink print button in the top right corner of your report. If you are still having problems when using this button, go into your printing options and find “Show Details.” Check the box “Ignore Scaling and Shrink to Fit Page Width”.

Some browsers do not print all images, including background images, unless you adjust your print settings. If images are not printing, go to the print options in your browser and check the “print background images” box.

Pricing & Billing

If your student has an up-to-date cognitive evaluation that you believe accurately reflects your student’s cognitive strengths and needs, you can subscribe for a Toolbox that includes the personalized learning plan. You will be given the opportunity to indicate your student’s strengths, relative needs, and interests so we can provide you with customized recommendations.

In general, Mindprint does not offer refunds. However, if you feel that Mindprint’s services did not meet your expectations, please contact us so we can address your concerns. We strive for 100% customer satisfaction.

Privacy and Safety

All assessment results are analyzed relative to a national sample of children of the same age. Children have a natural progression of development and the expected accuracy and speed will differ by age. In order to have the most accurate understanding of the student’s strengths and needs, we ask that you provide an accurate month and year of birth.

If you ultimately decide to share your Mindprint results with third parties for potential accommodations, these third parties will need to have an accurate name and age for their records. Your learner profile will print with this information in the top left hand corner.

Mindprint is committed to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and security of our users. The results of your Mindprint evaluation belong strictly to the account holder, and individual results will never be shared by Mindprint.

Mindprint is committed to providing a secure, user-controlled environment for our services. We adhere to strict privacy and security standards, and comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) policies. The site is intended for parents, teachers and other adults, and not intended to be used by children under the age of 13. We encourage use of the site by children over the age of 13 only with adult supervision. Children under the age of 18 may not subscribe to or create their own account with this site.

Since Mindprint never uses your student’s information for any purpose other than developing your the learner profile, your choice of name has no impact on Mindprint. However, using an incomplete or incorrect name may not be advisable if you wish to share the results of the Mindprint evaluation with the school or other educational institution now or in the future. The name that you use during registration will appear on the student’s learner profile.

Mindprint does not sell, lease, or rent you or your student’s personal information to anyone, for any reason, at any time. We are fully committed to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and security of our users.

Mindprint versus Alternative Solutions

You may see websites that claim to be able to determine a student’s preferred learning style, such as visual, auditory, tactile or kinesthetic. Although your student might express a preference for a certain approach, there is no scientific evidence validating the effectiveness of learning styles.

Although the learning style concept feels right, it is not a well-accepted, scientific approach to understanding and improving academic performance.

Cognitive skill assessments, by contrast, have over 100 years of evidence-based scientific backing.

Mindprint offers what we believe to be is the only fully online valid and normedonline cognitive test for children under the age of 21. Unless the results of a cognitive test are interpreted in the context of an appropriate peer group of developing children, they are unlikely to be accurate. If you are considering online alternatives, you may want to investigate who created the test and whether scores are based on a large sample of children and are properly normed and validated. To be assured that the test is valid you will want to review the peer-reviewed research on the test.

Online assessments offer pros and cons in comparison to traditional psycho-educational evaluations. While online assessments can meet the needs of many families, they might not be the optimal choice for everyone. Mindprint is best-suited for children ages 8 to 21 who are reading at a 2nd grade level and can follow multi-step directions independently. If you have questions about whether Mindprint will be suitable for your child, please email us with your questions.

Among the educational apps and websites you may consider are a category called “brain trainers.” These sites offer cognitive exercises for struggling students and adults to improve learning skills. Mindprint evaluates many of the same skills that brain trainers claim to improve. However, Mindprint makes no claims of improving these skills, just accurately measuring them at a given point in time.

If you decide to use a brain training service, you should carefully investigate the company’s research and claims. You might find that an approach is not scientifically valid or not normed to children of a similar age. Moreover, because exercises are presented repeatedly over a defined period, the results may demonstrate an improvement in test-taking, and not a lasting improvement in cognitive performance. If you are considering brain training, we recommend choosing an approach by reading independent articles that validate efficacy. You will want to confirm that any positive effects have been validated in children.

Mindprint can be an important and affordable first step in understanding a student’s needs before determining if more in-depth evaluation and supports are necessary. No online tool can replace observation and analysis of a skilled professional. However, in many markets there are wait times of 3-6 months to have a cognitive evaluation with a preferred practitioner. Costs typically range from $1,500-$5,000 depending on location. Mindprint can be a useful solution to support a student while awaiting a full cognitive evaluation. In the case where a full evaluation might be beneficial, Mindprint results can help identify which practitioner specialty might be most appropriate given objective data on the student’s strengths and needs.

Mindprint can also be an excellent choice for students for whom a full evaluation is not necessary. All student’s benefit from a clear understanding of their learning strengths and needs. Mindprint is also an excellent alternative for students who need to show qualifications for gifted programs but have not had recent standardized testing.

The table below provides a more detailed understanding of how Mindprint compares to the specific alternatives you may be considering: